Open City

Open City Merseyside

All About Audiences runs Open City Merseyside in collaboration with
Liverpool Arts Regeneration Consortium (LARC).

Gin Jacobucci, who runs Open City, said: “Arts and culture have a vital role to play in all our lives but there’s still massive sections of the community which, often for very good reasons, don’t feel comfortable getting involved with what Liverpool has to offer.

“The idea of Open City is to help break those barriers down. Each volunteer works with a specific community group to create a programme of activity which will appeal to members’ tastes and comfort zones.”

Previous volunteers have worked with single dads, groups of visually impaired people, pensioners and people with mental health issues and, in doing so, played a key role in inspiring individuals and building their confidence to try new things.

Further details of the project can be found on the LARC website.

Open City Greater Manchester

The Open City project in Greater Manchester has recently come to the end of its current phase. The project worked with community groups who did not attend the arts, pairing them up with professional volunteers. Over a period of a few months, volunteers worked with community groups to identify barriers to attendance and organise a series of visits to arts and cultural venues and events.

The overall aim of the project was to ensure people felt welcome and excited about stepping into an arts venue and engaging with what is on offer there - changing what could be a daunting experience for many into one filled with pleasure and anticipation.

Alongside the intensive work taking place between volunteers and groups, we developed a wider Open City Network database. We will continue to develop this and use it to keep community groups up to date with events and opportunities.

Using the learning from the Greater Manchester project, we are now developing a Guide to Working with Community Groups which will be available online soon to All About Audiences subscribers.

We are in the process of consulting with a wide range of arts and cultural organisations across the North West about their needs and priorities and, following this, we will be developing our future plans for Open City and community engagement support.